Muse of the Week: Anachronism

This afternoon my students will be selecting a sticker from an envelope that will determine whether they become a 1912 election advocate of Woodrow Wilson, Democrat, or Theodore Roosevelt, Progressive (but a longtime Republican). Accordingly, the Wilson stickers are blue and the Roosevelt stickers are red... but I became curious about when this red state/blue state dichotomy emerged and found an interesting article in the NYT archive that tells the story. Turns out the pattern emerged as recently as the 2000 election; prior to this date, red and blue were used more or less interchangeably.

I was already aware the pattern didn't extend as far back as 1912, so I am intentionally engaging in a bit of historical anachronism for the sake of student clarity and the opportunity to introduce the term "anachronism" in class. Anachronism is, of course, the misapplication of ideas, beliefs or artifacts in a different historical context. That extra wearing a wristwatch in a movie set in Roman times? Definitely an anachronism. The capri pants Beezus wears to school in my daughter's recent edition of Beverly Cleary's 1952 book Henry and Beezus? Also an anachronism (and one that drives me slightly batty).

More problematically, we tend to apply our ideas, principles and presuppositions to earlier times in an attempt to make sense of our past. We would never have done x, y or z because we would "know better." We project our beliefs about a given time period upon the period itself, failing to recognize that inherited tradition can vary drastically from past reality. Does this mean we cannot judge the serious deficiencies in our past, or use the lessons of the past to inform our present and future decisions? No, I'd argue it does not. If we understand the context of time and place, we can draw informed conclusions and avoid presentist positions. This is one of the central enterprises of historical scholarship. Careful understanding is necessary, however, if we are to avoid the pitfalls of anachronistic thinking. So, I'll pass out my stickers and prompt our discussion of the term... and I hope the lesson takes hold.

Webfoot Wednesday: Capitol

"In the souls of its citizens will be found the likeness of the state, which if they be unjust and tyrannical then will it reflect their vices, but if they be lovers of righteousness, confident in their liberties, so will it be clean in justice, bold in freedom."

I'm not sure where this quotation comes from originally, but I came across it the other day in a book by the late Oregon governor and U.S. senator Mark Hatfield, who reported it was chiseled into the balcony just below the doors that lead to the governor's office in Salem. Words worth bearing in mind... we get what we ask for.

Muse of the Week: Technology

Sixty-one years ago today, the United States began testing atomic bombs in the Nevada desert. Currently, government officials are negotiating compensation for those whose health was adversely affected by these tests.

I'm entering the period in my United States history course when Americans increasingly believed science and technology offered the keys to the kingdom of endless abundance and an increasing standard of living. Standardization and efficiency would create the largest consumer-goods juggernaut the world had ever known. Science could offer unparalleled medical benefits ensuring longer, healthier lives for people from all strata of American society. But... there is always a but. The very standardization and efficiency the early twentieth century so prized often failed to accommodate worker's rights or appreciate the unique contributions that immigrants' cultures might have made. The science that could result in so many medical and technical advances also spurred practices ranging from eugenics to the aforementioned atomic bomb. And, of course, so many of these advances also created the unintended or unrecognized consequences of waste, resource exploitation and the diseases of overindulgence--and even the good things have not always made it to the rest of the world.

In the contemporary world, we struggle with competing visions, even within our own minds (if mine is any indication). Technology must be carefully weighed and measured if we are to make wise decisions about our future. Prior assumptions that technology represents an unmitigated good no longer hold water. How will we negotiate this complex path?

I hope the Nevada testing grounds prove a useful example. Past outcomes cannot predict the future, but they can help us see patterns and tendencies. We would be foolish not to absorb these lessons.

Webfoot Wednesday: rain

An apropos note from "This Day in Oregon," given our recent rains and flooding problems: evidently if this were 1935, tomorrow the southern Oregon town of Jacksonville would begin to see what happens when heavy rains combine with old mine timbers... that had been holding open mine shafts built beneath the town's streets. Oops.

Muse of the Week: Legibility

I started research in the papers of former Oregon Governor Tom McCall yesterday afternoon, and I'm having a delightful time... three (thick) folders in, and I've already been able to cite phrases including "pious buzzards," "Hell with that" and "like lecturing inside a dishwasher." This man would have gotten along famously with reporters even if he hadn't been a newsman himself.

One minor quibble: the man's handwriting--and there's a lot of it, as one might expect (the above phrases definitely do not connote organized speech preparation by committee)--is positively atrocious. Word to the wise: if you expect to accomplish things worthy of an archival collection, cultivate legible penmanship. It will endear you to generations of historians.

My painstaking journey through enthusiastically crossed "t"s and scribbled "if"s (or is that an "of"? an "off"? uff...) is a walk in the park compared to historians of the pre-typewriter era. I must contend with postscripts and alterations, but their entire manuscript collections may be written in archaic or simply unreadably sloppy script. A good friend of mine waded through the microfilm equivalent to reams of probate records from the late colonial era through the early years of the Republic. Ouch. Others must wander through foreign languages using extinct letter-forms and antiquated terminology.

Even in this digital age, we tend to associate the written word with permanence. "Get it in writing." "Sign a contract." "Dot the 'i's and cross the 't's." Historians' fascinating journeys through archival collections demonstrate the historicity even of the seemly permanent. What did this term mean? What does a looping script like this indicate? How one earth does one decipher this penmanship? Expression is an ever-changing process, and the means of expression are fodder for historical scholarship just as much as the thoughts and ideas the expression represents.

Webfoot Wednesday: Scrappo

I found the first of these two images in David Peterson del Mar's Oregon's Promise: An Interpretive History (Corvallis: OSU Press, 2003) and I found it highly amusing. Both images are available on the Oregon Historic Photograph Collections Web site.




The statue appeared in the Marion County Courthouse Square on August 1, 1942, and featured a mechanical jaw that could be manipulated using a rope to make Scrappo "talk." The base of the statue included a tractor donated by Chemawa Indian School and a 1,400-pound tire donated by Associated Oil. It remained standing until late March 1943 as a 30-foot-high reminder of the importance of contributing scrap metal and cooking fats to the war effort.

Muse of the Week: Kumbaya

This post on NPR about the song "Kumbaya" and the cynicism it now inspires speaks directly to my anomie about the state of political affairs in our country. I highly recommend reading it. And yes, when did it become a problem to advocate for peace, for outreach, for understanding? This is precisely what is wrong with American politics today.

Partisan diatribes are nothing new. See, for example, the below-posted political cartoon from an 1868 Harper's Bazaar equating the Democratic candidates in the 1868 presidential election with the Confederacy and the Ku Klux Klan, which I used with my students on Wednesday (though sadly, depending upon context this accusation may not always have been very far off base):



So, we've always had a difficult time getting along. Does that mean, however, we should not only throw up our hands, but begin to actively ridicule the idea that we could ever come together and work for positive change? That we should be trying to reach out to each other and forge alliances for a better future? We deserve better--for ourselves, for our children, and for the rest of the world.